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Looking back, my early twenties were full of intensity. Around 21 or 22, my work carried a kind of religious undertone - references to the Red Sea, biblical imagery, that sense of drama and myth. People responded to it, and that response encouraged me to follow the thread. It felt like I was onto something. But eventually I reached a point where I knew I had to extend myself as a painter. You can’t stay in one place forever. New ideas need room, and sometimes that means leaving parts of your past work behind.

That urge to move on became stronger after I left teaching at Chisholm. It marked the end of a particular chapter in my life - one filled with certain experiences and emotional weight - and I wanted to replace it with something new. I moved into abstraction and stayed there for five or six years. Slowly, though, landscape began to creep back in. Sky, land, reflection - those elements never really left me.

By my thirties, I found myself painting the landscape seriously again, but with a lighter spirit. I’d shed much of the heaviness of my younger years and rediscovered joy in painting. That work carried me through my forties, and now my fifties seem to be racing past. The decades really do fly.

Frustration, and Why Artists Never Stop.

I’m addicted to painting. It’s strange, but true. I don’t need to paint every day - I just need to know that I can. I need that space available. Some of the best paintings I’ll ever make exist only in my mind and will never see the light of day. Ideas are perfect until you try to translate them into paint, and the paint never quite does what you want it to do. That gap can be demoralising.

But I don’t think artists ever truly resolve that tension. That’s why studios are full of work. It’s not about filling space - it’s because the creative pursuit doesn’t end. Even if you move into sculpture, printmaking, or writing, the need to explore and push boundaries remains.

Some artists stay within a single genre and refine it endlessly, and that works beautifully for them. Others - myself included - need to pivot. The contemporary word is “pivot,” but really it’s about risk-taking. That risk isn’t always rewarded by the public, who tend to like consistency, but I deeply admire artists who take left and right turns, who visibly enjoy their creative lives. You can see when the creative spirit is alive and moving.

Residencies are wonderful for that reason - time away, in private, to explore without pressure. I’ve always jumped between ideas and mediums, but I’ve carried a strong aesthetic discipline with me wherever I go.

Landscape, Distance, and the South Coast.

There’s a recurring theme in my work that I can’t escape: landscape, particularly the South Coast of Victoria. I was born and raised there, and it’s embedded in me. Interestingly, I think distance has strengthened that connection. When you step back and see a place from afar, your appreciation deepens.

That’s why I haven’t moved back. I like observing from the boundary - jumping in and out. In my head, I work between two bays now: Lady Bay and Port Phillip Bay. The landscape around Melbourne is subtle and quiet. Down south, it’s an orchestra - dramatic, loud, emotional. Drive inland and it becomes barren, but when you really look, there’s so much going on. That volcanic region is extraordinary.

I don’t chase grand views anymore. I’ve never painted the Apostles. I look for subtlety - curves in trees, moonlit shapes, quiet glows of light. Recently, I’ve been bringing more colour back into my work. For a long time, everything leaned blue, dark, olive green. Now I’m reintroducing deeper reds, oxides, and warmer tones. Over the last two years, I’ve felt genuinely excited by what I’m making again.

Restraint, Space, and Letting the Viewer In.

A collector once said something that stayed with me: your work shows a lot of restraint. I don’t overfill the canvas. That restraint feels like a sign of maturity - and respect for the landscape. I want people to breathe inside the painting. If the subject or feeling is big, the space has to support it.

You’re not just painting your own ideas; you’re offering someone else a way into your world. Artists have always done this - using roads, windows, doorways, horizons. In my work, I try to create the sense that the painting has no fixed age, that it continues beyond the frame.

I’m wary of realism when it becomes about technique alone. Sometimes realism kills a painting - you admire the skill, but miss the energy. I want viewers to bring their own inner thoughts, their own interpretations. My work is suggestive rather than directive. There’s longing, appreciation, even reverence in landscape when you view it from a distance. Distance, I think, is a great editor.

I often tell students: paint what you think it looks like, not everything you see. Your mind has already removed the unnecessary information. Less really is more. The viewer arrives asking, Where’s my space in this? and that’s where the painting begins to work.

A Healthy Practice

For me, a healthy practice starts with simple things: photocopy paper, Pilot pens, always within reach. Ideas need to be captured quickly. I also limit how much other work I absorb. There’s too much visual noise now, too many voices telling you what you should be doing.

As I’ve aged, I’ve let go of a lot of self-doubt. That’s not ego - it’s survival. Part of my practice is being okay with a painting, setting it aside, and trusting that it may resolve later. Persistence matters. Not everything works. Everyone has failed canvases.

I keep a “forever painting” — a sacrificial work that lives on the wall. Leftover paint goes onto it. Scraped paint goes onto it. Over time it’s becoming a large abstraction, evolving rather than being wasted. Sometimes people love those accidental surfaces more than the finished works.

When things aren’t working, I go small. Cheap paper, small studies, no pressure. Colour play, quick compositions, rediscovering joy. It’s much easier than facing an expensive linen when you’re feeling lost.

And joy matters. It’s easy to paint darkness. Painting joy is hard. That’s my challenge now - to make work where viewers feel the pleasure of paint, colour, and movement.

Why Painting Endures

Painting survives because it gives you something immediately. You stand in front of it, and it’s complete. But truly good painting does more than that - it rewards you over time. Like a great wine, it opens slowly.

I want my work to draw you in, then push you back. To resolve instantly, but never finish revealing itself.

That tension - between immediacy and depth - is what keeps me painting. And I don’t think that will ever change.